Twitch Upon a Star (43 page)

He was working overtime on
Rising
, developing another sitcom,
The Paul Lynde Show
, and allowing his marriage to Lizzie to fizzle. Consequently, it was now clear that she had found at least a measure of comfort in the arms of Asher's
Bewitched
protégé Richard Michaels, who explained it all to
Entertainment Tonight
(E.T.) in 2006. By the eighth and final year of
Bewitched
, his and Lizzie's friendship had developed in a “deeper way,” he said. It was something they both tried to “repress. But as the year went on, it became more and more compelling.”

So they moved into a one-bedroom apartment in West Los Angeles and kept their affair hidden. Reports in the press suggested she had retired and moved to Europe. But Michaels said such was not the case. Lizzie simply did not want to be hounded by the tabloid media. So they kept their relationship a secret.

By 1986, Asher hired Michaels to direct an episode of his CBS drama series
Kay O'Brien
. According to what Michaels conveyed in 2006 on E.T., any animosity that may have existed between the two men had dissolved. “That was then,” Asher told him. “This is now.”

Michaels said he and Lizzie were friendly until the end. It proved challenging, but “anytime something like this happens, it's always tough on the principals,” he said, as if they were actors performing in a play. “It was tough saying good-bye. But absolutely we were on good terms when it broke.”

It's been nearly five decades since he and Lizzie were together, but as Michaels told E.T., he still thinks of her as
Samantha
, even though he knew her as Elizabeth all those years before. “I don't think any of us can forget the sweet lady who could twitch her nose and make everything okay in the world,” he said.

Michaels, who retired from directing in 1994, lives in Maui, Hawaii. Ironically, his daughter, Meredith Michaels-Beerbaum, shared a love of horses with Elizabeth, as she was the first woman to be ranked Number One in the world in equestrian show jumping.

In time—if not
just
in time—Bill Asher realized his liaison with Fox was a mistake and blamed himself for his divorce from Lizzie. In 1999, he appeared on A&E's
Biography
and admitted that “… the whole thing was my fault. I was going to work every morning and she was doing nothing. And it got to her. And she finally took off. I was very angry that she left. So I left.”

Apparently with Fox, and then Lizzie divorced him in 1974. But in 1976, Fox was out of the picture and Asher married actress Joyce Bulifant, who subsequently divorced him in 1993. Since 1998, he's been married to Meredith Asher.

Through it all, Lizzie had found a “fox” of her own—Robert Fox-worth—whom she met on the set of
Mrs. Sundance
in 1973. He became the only other man in her life, the one she frequently referred to as the love of her life.

Nancy Fox, a childhood friend of
Charlie's Angels
star Jaclyn Smith, would continue acting, at least through the 1980s, when she'd appear in films like, ironically enough,
Warlock
, released in 1989. It was in 1982 that she appeared in what is arguably her largest role: the lead for
The Sonja Henie Story
, a feature film based on the life of the Norwegian blonde Olympic star and ice-skating movie queen of the 1940s.

Beyond that, she was never heard from again, at least publicly. She now leads a quiet life in New York, which is how she always wanted it. In November 1977, she repeated to
The Youngstown Vindicator
almost exactly what Lizzie said to
Look
magazine in 1965: “I don't care about being a big star. I don't even think I'd like that. I just want to stay well-adjusted and happy.”

While Lizzie and Nancy may have had more in common than either may have realized,
Bewitched
co-star Irene Vernon felt left out in the cold, pushed to the curb. She had played
Louise Tate
on the show before she was replaced by Kasey Rogers or, as Vernon said in 1988, “I was fired!”

Apparently, it was because of her friendship with Danny Arnold, the show's original producer. According to Vernon, Bill and Lizzie were not at all fond of Arnold. So, they let her go in the spring of 1966, the end of the second season. “Devastated,” Vernon then left Hollywood, geographically and figuratively, and gravitated towards a more successful career, in real estate, in Beverly Hills.

In the big scheme of things, some actors are willing to do whatever it takes to make it in Hollywood. Others, like Fox and Vernon, vote against a
no-holds-barred
approach and leave show business behind, savoring their lives and their sanity in the process.

Performers like Elvis and Michael Jackson, for example, were not so lucky. They didn't know when to stop. They succumbed to the intoxicating environment the entertainment industry provides, almost like a drug; and in some cases, exactly like a drug. There's so much opportunity, so much potential to succeed, and when that success arrives, it simply becomes too much to handle.

Fortunately, in Lizzie's case, she was never forced to choose between a career and personal happiness. She was born into wealth and status that stabilized her life, at least financially. Although her father was demanding and she for many years lived in his shadow, Elizabeth would later carve out her own brand of stardom that allowed her the luxury to pick and choose to work as she pleased. In short, even with her various issues, she had her head on straight.

Entertainment curator Rob Ray explains it all:

Cliff Robertson was Lizzie's good friend in the early, pre-
Bewitched
portion of her career. Other than that, he didn't know much about, for one, her relationship with Bill Asher, because as he said, “I didn't know him. But I do know he was very possessive, and a rather domineering figure, although he was a little fellow. And maybe because he was so short a fellow, he had a complex?”

During the
Bewitched
years, Robertson didn't see much of Lizzie, whom he affectionately referred to as “Lizbel” (as if she needed yet another nickname!). “She went into an envelope,” he says and the closest he came to her in those days was through mutual friends whom he'd periodically stop and ask, “Have you seen Lizbel?”

One day, however, at a restaurant in Santa Monica, he finally ran into her, walking out the door with Asher. By that time, Robertson was set to marry his second wife, Cynthia Stone, who was by his side. “I wanted to introduce Elizabeth to my new bride-to-be,” he said. When his Lizbel caught sight of him, much to Asher's displeasure, she shrieked, “Oh, Cliff! It is so great to see you!”

“We hugged,” Robertson recalled, “I guess, in what would be perceived as a typical Hollywood encounter. I don't think Bill was too pleased. He seemed a little bit impatient with her as if to say, ‘Quit talking to this silly actor.' But I didn't give a damn, because I was just seeing an old friend.” From this brief encounter, and from what he heard through the Hollywood grapevine, Robertson perceived that Asher was exerting a “certain control” over Lizzie. “He was very protective of her in that way. From a professional standpoint, at least from what I can gather, it proved beneficial for her. From a personal standpoint, I don't think he ever had it so good.”

Bewitched
actor David White agreed. In 1989, while in Lizzie's presence, White assessed the Montgomery-Asher marriage/business relationship in one sentence: “She was tremendously supportive of him almost to the point of sainthood.”

Upon hearing that, Lizzie added: “Bill was such a good director and if it hadn't been for him, [
Bewitched
] wouldn't have happened anyway. But I tell you, there were times when I was frustrated, and I'm sure there were times when he was just as frustrated with me.”

As if on cue, David then recalled when Bill directed a scene with him and Lizzie. He was proud of his performance that day, and assumed Bill was going to say “Print!” after the scene was completed. “But he didn't,” David recalled.

Lizzie chimed in with each account of his memory of that day:

To David's surprise, Lizzie recalled a tense moment of her own with Bill on the
Bewitched
set, when they weren't exactly on the same page … of the script. The incident transpired while filming the fifth season segment, “
Samantha's
Power Failure,” during which Lizzie happened to be pregnant with their last child, daughter Rebecca, while Bill was about to have a baby all on his own:

However, he surprised her and said, “Well, as long as we're set up for it, let's do that speech where you appeal to the Witches Council.” It was an intricate special effects–ridden scene that would also include Agnes Moorehead, who would be stationed at a lower level of the set, glancing up at Lizzie as
Samantha
chatted with the Council. But Lizzie was unprepared to shoot the scene and shocked at Bill's demands.

“
Holy shit
!” she thought. “
What does he mean? I haven't even looked at that scene!
”

So she told him, straight out:

“I don't know it.”

“Well, why not?”

“Because I wasn't supposed to know it until tomorrow.”

“You mean you don't look ahead?”

“Bill!! What do you mean, ‘I don't look ahead?' Of course, I do. But this is a long scene.”

“You can handle it. Just throw yourself into the witches' robes [the black frock or ‘flying suit' that
Samantha
was prone to wear when she meant serious witch business], and let's get going. Let's not waste any more time. We've got another forty-five minutes.”

Lizzie was furious, but as usual, she deferred to Bill's discretion, and did what he requested. She retreated to her dressing room to change and to give the script a quick study or, as she said, “To look at this damn thing, and try to memorize it, feverishly.”

But there was more trouble ahead. Suddenly, there were visitors on the set and not just regular visitors, but crew members' wives. “And wives of the crew are never trustful of their husbands, anyway,” Lizzie recalled. “They really aren't.”

By this time, she's uncomfortable for several reasons. 1) She's frustrated with Bill's impatient demands for her to know lines she did not need to remember until the next day. 2) She's feeling the various physical discomforts of being pregnant. 3) Potentially jealous crew members' wives are now roaming the set. 4) The watchful eye of Agnes Moorehead is ever present.